(VAL POV):
I took a shot for my raging headache and set the bottle back down, laying back against my bed. When she left I couldn't sleep in my own room anymore because it smelled like her. Every night a different dream of her would haunt me.
Tonight it was her head breaking the surface of the river. A dream I suffered over and over again endlessly. I would have the dream of my own words and how pitiful and useless they were and then I would watch her leave without even trying to make her stay. Sweat drenched down the back of my shirt so I pulled it off and discarded it.
Liam had asked me over and over again why I wouldn't just go find her.
Honestly, I knew that she didn't want to see me. Something about the coldness on her face after she broke the water told me that she truly couldn't stand to be near me anymore.
With Rosaura, missing her had been one thing. She was my favorite person in the entire world and she was ripped away suddenly and abruptly and completely without my influence.
With Liana, I didn't get the luxury of being a victim in the situation. Every nightmare reminded me of some other horrible thing I had done or something I should have done but didn't. Killing her family and the smell of smoke. The way I never took her down to Reuben's pizza. The way I didn't even know if she liked pizza, or what her favorite food might be. Getting myself mortally wounded and having her be forced to choose between comforting me and letting me die.
I snatched the bottle off the floor and took two more swigs of it. Most days, I could tolerate her absence. Most days I was Alpha of pack Valleriano and I had duties and things to do and business decisions to settle or council meetings.
Today was not one of those days apparently. My throat was hoarse from the morning and from the liquor. I missed her so terribly I didn't want to leave my room at all but sleeping would only make me dream of her more. Some nights for this reason, I didn't sleep. I would take walks out into the woods that she loved.
I would stare at her river but never enter it.
The river had belonged to her after that night. It became another thing I dared not damage for fear she might feel my transgression even through our large distance.
I walked over to the closest and pulled on a striped collared shirt and then my women's suit jacket, leaving the same pants I had worn yesterday on. I moved to the bathroom and brushed my teeth, swishing with the mouthwash and then swallowing it.
With Rosaura becoming something beyond what she had been before, I couldn't possibly hope to lie to her but it was my single fortunate circumstance that I didn't have to. She never questioned the drinking or the insomnia or my inability to cross the river and my insistence to go around it instead. She simply stared past me and through me and knew the things I couldn't bear to say without my having to say them.
Liam however, like he always did, he worried. He would smell the liquor or see the bags of my eyes or stare down at my full plates at dinner and it made him restless. Sometimes angry. I remembered one month, the worst month, where he had come into the room where I slept and woke me up angrily.
"Vallory you can't keep doing this. You can't sleep through the whole day, day drinking and vomiting on yourself because you aren't eating. I swear to god, get the fuck up!"
His voice was harsh and croaking as though he'd been crying. I remember through the fog of my wine drunken state thinking how good I was at hurting people who loved me.
I strode down our hallways, nodding my head at others passing. When I entered the old converted classroom we used for meetings, I was irritated to find a familiar woman sitting in my spot at the council table and nobody else in the room.
"Good morning, Val. How did you sleep?"
She stared up at me through her lashes and smiled sweetly.
Rhiannon was another member of the pack who had yet to find her mate and occupied her time instead with pursuing a relationship with me. She was beautiful, of course, and she wasn't extreme about her flirtations but they made me sick regardless. I had found in my time since Liana left that truthfully there was nobody else who could ever hope to replace her.
I excused her behavior most of the time, because Rhiannon was mostly harmless. She was still just young enough and just bored enough to be given the courtesy of gentle rejections.
"Hi Rhiannon, I slept fine. Please get out of my seat."
She pursed her lips and sighed, rising from the table and moving towards the door. She paused for a moment, leaning against the door frame and staring at me. Her flirtations had been a newer development and I was vaguely curious what would have sparked them now.
"You should sleep more."
With that, she turned and stalked off down the hallway as Liam had just tucked his head inside and surveyed the room. Rosaura was just behind him, slipping into the room with her ghostly atmosphere and sitting right beside me. Liam's eyes were hard as he stared at me and I answered him with nothing at all. No responsive stare of apology or acknowledgment, regardless of how unfair it was.
"The witches are trying to rebound in Sleeping Hollow. Two of their groups have joined up, doubling our projected numbers at least."
The report from Stephan shook me from my brother's pained gaze and I met the new information with furrowed brows. I spoke uncertainly, propping my head up with an elbow as I stared at my lieutenant.
"Double the numbers?"
There was disbelief in my voice. Stephan returned an uncomfortable look of his own and informed me only of more unfortunate news as he droned on in his nasally voice.
"Worse, we know nothing about this other witch group or where they come from."
I sat up straight and leaned over the map across our council table. We had troops surrounding the hollow on its edge, blocking the most common entry point used to get into the woods. Rosaura spoke after him, voice distant and ethereal as her eyes dragged rapidly around the room.
"There are three witch groups in the forest now. The third is of no consequence to us, the others are planning something large to destroy our troops as we speak."
Having gathered all pieces of the information I stood up quickly and gestured for the lieutenant and Rosaura to follow me. Liam objected, saying he should be coming with us too. Rosaura and I both turned to shoot warning looks at him.
"Diana could give birth literally any moment now. You should be with your mate."
Liam wanted to chastise my hypocrisy but instead he sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose before locking eyes with me seriously.
"I will stay here to watch over the pack, but you need to be more careful."
My throat was numb from the liquor and a light buzz had rendered me immune to his anxiety. His frustration seemed to be growing as my dismissal and he grabbed my arm, eyes frightened as he whispered.
"Val, I feel like something awful is going to happen. Please, just be careful."
The damp shine and hushed whisper struck me even through my insobriety and I scanned his face confused. Liam was always overly worried but never like this. I took his hand and squeezed it, nodding my head to promise I'd be careful before I picked up my pace to catch up to Rosaura and the others.
Liam's warning made chills rise on my arms and I had to shake myself to focus again.